


The things we want

by wordswehavesaid



Series: Parental Approval [8]
Category: Arrow (TV 2012), The Flash (TV 2014)
Genre: Angst and Fluff, Canon Divergence - Barry Allen/Oliver Queen Established relationship, First Time, M/M, References to Sex, post-"Rogue Time"
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-16
Updated: 2015-04-16
Packaged: 2018-03-23 07:26:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,525
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3759613
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wordswehavesaid/pseuds/wordswehavesaid
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Barry tells Oliver about the events of the original timeline where Iris admitted to having feelings for him, then works to convince him that it doesn't change a thing. And a little wisdom from Joe doesn't go amiss.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The things we want

**Author's Note:**

> Ok, so I've had the first couple pages of this one sitting around on my computer for a while now, and I finally finished it. It was prompted by Devil_In_Disguise who wanted Barry to tell Oliver about the first timeline and then reassure him that he wouldn't be leaving Oliver for Iris. Also, not the spoil the *ahem* punch-line, but this also fills a request made by more than a few commentors for Oliver to find out something that happened in the second timeline as well.  
> As such, it's actually set right after "In the act" and before "Father figures". I'm going to try and see if I can fix the order of the series.  
> After this, I'll likely start covering some non-episodic prompts that people have suggested. For now, enjoy!

They’ve escaped the tender mercies of his family after dinner due to Joe having to drop Iris and Eddie back at their home before returning to the precinct to finish up something or other. He thinks that’s deliberate on the part of the man who raised him. Barry still isn’t going to make the same mistake twice, however, and he takes Oliver up to the second floor once the headlights of the squad car disappear down the street.

“Hang on,” he says, holding up a hand, then is cleaning his room in the space of milliseconds, a mad dash of clean and dirty laundry being stowed away, the bed remade with changed sheets, calorie bar wrappers and other random debris all being dumped in the trash where it belongs. He stops leaned against the open doorframe, feet crossed and an arm raised to cushion his head. Barry can’t decide if he wants to go for cool or casual and just ends up saying, “Alright, we’re good.”

Oliver grins. “Do I want to know how bad it was just a second ago?”

“Use your imagination,” he responds flippantly. This earns him one of Oliver’s quieter laughs, a few huffs of breath that send tingles down his spine just to hear it directed at him. Barry sails right past cool or casual, crooks the finger of his other hand in his best ‘come hither’ gesture which probably looks ridiculous.

“Barry,” Oliver still warns, voice a low rumble even as he steps forward. He takes Barry’s hand with one of his own, laces their fingers together, while his other trails up to cup his cheek. “Joe—”

“Went back to the precinct on purpose,” he tells him. Oliver gets it a moment later, if the way his eyebrows raise and just the barest of smirks graces his features. Clearly he’s amazed, if not a little impressed, at Joe’s implicit decision to give them some space. Barry impulsively turns his head, kisses the other man’s palm, then tugs him over the threshold, reaching around Oliver to pull the door shut behind him. “So can we forget about my family for a while? I’m trying to thank you for putting up with all that.”

He leans into the other man’s space and presses a kiss to the corner of his mouth, then backs up a few paces, opening the room up for Oliver to inhabit. His room. His heart is hammering away in his chest faster than ever at the thought, it feels like.

Oliver does take a couple steps into the space, casts his gaze around, but he’s decidedly drawn in on himself when he remarks, “I wasn’t putting up with it. It was…nice. A little awkward, but it was going to happen at some point.”

Barry wants to groan. Ordinarily, he’d love to discuss the finer virtues of his family—and Eddie, he guesses—but they finally, _finally_ , have an unspecified amount of time and a whole house to themselves and he thinks he might actually be _ready_ , but when before Oliver was like a relentless storm of passion and desire now it feels like Barry’s having to coax him into each step. And one of the not-so-great qualities of his family is that talking about them is a serious buzzkill. More than baseball, cold showers, dead puppies, or nuns. Somebody call Cisco, he’s found the solution!

Oliver seems to pick up on his growing exasperation, but he’s not done with the topic. “I mean it, Barry. It’s important to me to know that you have people here who love you and support you when I can’t. I already knew Joe does. Iris, too, she really…cares for you.”

And suddenly he remembers that ‘nice’ is sometimes Oliver’s code for ‘really upsetting, but I’m not going to tell you that’. Nothing that he’s said is off, but the tone, the stiff way he holds himself, looking around like he’s unsure why he’s here or how to go forward all scream it.

“You’re not actually worried about what she said, right?” He checks first, though it’s the least likely issue. “Cause Iris would never actually do that. She just felt like she had to tell you off.”

“Because she’s your best friend,” Oliver states, and Barry nods.

He can sense there’s more to it than what the other man’s saying, however, and prompts, “But?”

“But that hasn’t always been it.”

Barry can’t help frowning in confusion and hurt. “You know that’s not true anymore.”

He’s heard a similar line from previous girlfriends he’s had, little relationships that ended just about as soon as they met Iris and realized Barry’d been trying to kid himself. So the other man surprises him when he replies, “For you, maybe,” Oliver agrees, not quite the vote of confidence Barry’s looking for. Then he continues, “But some of what was said this evening, by her, makes me wonder if I was wrong. About her not—” Oliver’s voice has turned a bit rough, almost faltering for a moment before he switches tracks entirely. “You said you tried to tell her about us being together, before. Why?”

It seems like a random question, but they both know what he’s really asking. With the real nature of how they’d met and built a strong relationship in part from the commonalities of being vigilantes not known to Iris, it would have been—now is—hard to explain to her just how it happened. Oliver knows Barry wouldn’t have tried to tell her without having a very good, unavoidable reason for doing it.

But Barry knows that the reason is something he’s not looking forward to telling Oliver. It sits heavy in his gut, a horrible secret, a sort of anxiety mixed with guilt slowly churning around and threatening to rise up and take him over unless if he tells the other man right now, because what he’s saying, it’s like he already knows.

Barry blurts, “I can travel back in time. With my speed.”

“What?” Oliver looks like he just whacked him over the head with a two-by-four. Tempting as it is to laugh, or just use part of this little anecdote as a distraction from what they were talking about, Barry cuts to the chase.

“It was sort of an accident. I repeated a whole day, yesterday actually. But the first time around, some really bad stuff was happening to Joe, and Eddie couldn’t be there for Iris and she sort of- she—”

“She turned to you,” Oliver guesses completely accurately, head bowed and eyes squeezed shut.

“She was upset, scared—nothing happened!” He clarifies hurriedly when the other man turns away slightly, the look on his face heartbreaking. “She just said some stuff about not being able to stop thinking about what I said at Christmas, about me. I turned the time back right after, Iris doesn’t even remember it. She hasn’t even said it!”

“Yet,” is Oliver’s view, his voice having an almost fatalistic quality to it. “That doesn’t mean it’s not how she feels now. Time travel or no.”

“No,” Barry is shaking his head, and he can’t believe he’s resorting to using this man’s advice but if it’s what it takes then he says, “Dr. Wells said it was something unique to that timeline, those events. That any feelings Iris _might_ have for me aren’t relevant to this one. They’re buried or undiscovered or—”

“Then they could be rediscovered, Barry,” Oliver says, turning back to face him now, and he looks wretched, torn between anger and hopelessness. “Some other crises or trauma or what have you could make her realize just what a lucky woman she’s been to have you there, right at her side, all along!” A bitter smile stretches over the older man’s face, and Barry kind of wishes he would frown instead, because it’s a horrible parody of the happiness they’ve shared together. “It’s only a matter of time.”

“Before what, Oliver? Before she decides she has feelings for me? Before I _leave you_ for her?” He’s throwing it out there as wild speculation, but he can tell by the way Oliver sucks in a breath and his eyes take on a hard, glassy look like he’s bracing for the inevitable that he’s hit the nail on the head.

“It’s what you’ve always wanted, Barry. _She’s_ what you’ve always wanted. And that’s good, that’s—I’m sure you’ll be very happy together.” He’s staring at a spot just over Barry’s shoulder, so he ducks into the line of sight in order to grab back that contact.

“But I’m already happy, Oliver. With you,” he insists. “Maybe I used to want to be with Iris, but that’s in the past.”

“And it could still be in the future,” the other man insists, stubborn in this one man campaign to re-convince Barry to be in love with Iris West. That probably makes him the only one outside either of his fathers to tell him it’s a good idea. “I’m just saying if that’s what you want, fine. But I’d rather we just—”

“Don’t you dare say it,” Barry interrupts, marching right up to him. “Don’t you _dare_ say end this, Oliver Queen. _If_ you really care about what I want, you’ll listen to me tell you what I want! I want this, I want what we have, and I want _you_. I want you to stop trying to tell me what I should want, especially because you’re really bad at it,” he can’t help a short laugh that’s more hysteria than humor. “I want you to stop trying to make me leave you to spare me some kind of pain or whatever you’re coming up with in your head, because you know that doesn’t work on me, and I want you to stop trying to make me leave you to spare _yourself_ some kind of pain, because I’m never going to hurt you like that, Oliver. I’m never going to leave you, not for Iris or anyone else. Because I love you,” he manages around a sudden lump in his throat, and his eyes start to sting when all the other man does is look stunned. “And I wanted to tell you that when we weren’t _fighting_ , bu—mmph!”

He really doesn’t know how, with his abilities, he keeps managing to be surprised. But being in a desperate bid to stop what would be the worst breakup of his life probably makes him even less aware of his surroundings, so Oliver’s able to grab him by the upper arms and yank him into a kiss midsentence. Barry splays his hands over the older man’s toned chest, fingers digging into the fabric of his shirt and mouth opening further to allow for a more thorough exploration than he’s ever had even as he’s quick to return the favor until they’re both breathless, panting against each other’s lips more than anything and Oliver’s arms have moved to wrap around his waist, pressing Barry right up against him.

“Please tell me you wanted me to kiss you,” Oliver’s turned his face to murmur it, in a husky sort of voice that sends shivers up Barry’s spine.

But he thinks he manages to top that when he replies, “Among other things.” He can _feel_ that Oliver has much the same wants. Barry slides one foot back across the floor searching for— _there_ —the bed, and now takes a deliberate step backward, fisting Oliver’s shirt to pull him with him.

The older man doesn’t protest when Barry squirms out of his hold to fall back onto the mattress, and though his eyes are dark as his gaze sweeps up Barry’s body, almost seeming to drink in the image, he doesn’t make a move himself yet. “We don’t have to do this just so you can prove something to me.”

Barry actually does groan aloud this time, propping himself up on his elbows. “Oliver, can you _please_ stop the acting-in-you-best-interest routine? What happened to all that ‘we’ll talk about the my’ and touchy…stuff? Where’d that go?”

Oliver actually looks a little embarrassed, saying, “I was defending against a perceived threat with what I had available.” Barry can’t help but snort at this typical response, which earns a glare with little actual heat in it before Oliver’s eyes actually do narrow, this time in an almost scrutinizing way. “Why?”

Barry goes still for a moment, and he has to look away if he’s going to say this at all. He picks at a loose thread in the blanket and mutters. “I maybe…kinda liked it.” He can feel the heat rising in his cheeks.

“Oh.” Barry peeks up at Oliver just in time to see the man go from momentary surprise to smug smirk. “You did, huh?” For some stupid reason he nods. Then the bed dips as Oliver rests first one knee, then the other on its surface. He’s stepped out of his shoes and now reaches out to pull off Barry’s, dropping each shoe onto the floor and each foot back onto the mattress much wider apart.

“Well, Barry, I might not be the only one to ever love you, but…” The smirk is reaching predatory levels as he crawls up the bed in that open space he’s created between Barry’s legs. He places one hand down beside Barry’s head and another on his hip, already slipping underneath his shirt and Barry can’t look away, not even if he wanted. “As I’ve been reliably informed, I’m the only one who gets to call you mine.” He leans down, stops just inches from Barry’s mouth. “And I’m yours.”

There’s probably some pun-related joke about his impatience any one of his friends would make if they knew about this, but Barry can’t take it anymore and he surges up to capture Oliver’s lips with his, drag him down onto him, the bed, and _oh_ , this isn’t what he’s been wanting, it’s what he’s been _needing_.

\---

Oliver is a little slow to wake up for once. There’s a content lethargy settled into his very limbs and a warmth that presses on him, just the right amount of soft but firm and real. That warmth is Barry, body curled in to his, legs tangled up together, his head resting on Oliver’s chest and he feels the rhythmic wash of a warm breath over his skin.

It takes his own breath away. He’s just…gorgeous. So beautiful, and he can’t understand how anyone who’s ever had him in their grasp would ever let him go. He wraps his own arms a little tighter around the sleeping form at just the thought. For some miraculous reason, Barry’s chosen him, and Oliver’s not inclined to make other people’s mistakes.

Barry Allen. His friend. His partner. Since last night his _lover_. His.

Oliver’s smiling wider than he has since he can remember and he lets his hands roam a little up and down the younger man’s sides and over his back, a light but insistent caress over that lean muscle.

“Mmm…” Barry shifts, nuzzles his cheek into Oliver’s chest and arches up into his touch. His eyes blink open, but even through the fog of sleep he manages a wide, lazy smile. “Mornin’.”

“Good morning.” He leans in and Barry meets his slow, open-mouthed kiss with a low, happy hum. When Oliver pulls away after a few moments of gentle exploration, Barry’s head drops right back down where it was resting. “How’re you feeling?”

Barry’s face scrunches up, bemused. “Good? That was…I can’t even describe it. Just wow.” He can’t help a prideful grin at that, though when Barry opens one eye to peer up at him the younger man slaps him lightly on the shoulder. “Yeah, I know, you’re Oliver Queen, course it was good…jerk.” Barry tries to roll away, so Oliver simply rolls with him, ending up on top.

“Well it takes two,” he tells the one beneath him. “And ‘wow’ is definitely the word I’d use.” Oliver starts trailing kisses down the other man’s jawline, his neck when Barry tilts his head back. He can’t seem to get enough of him, or those soft little murmuring noises the younger man makes.

Though when he looks up, Barry’s eyes have drifted shut again. Oliver stops. “Are you falling asleep?”

“Mmmaybe?” Barry scrubs a hand over one eye, yawning before he adds, “I think I, um, burned more calories than I was expecting. You know…”

He gets it after a moment. “The vibrating.”

Barry’s blushing. He loves that blush. “I didn’t know that would—I mean, Caitlin and Cisco kind of theorized that—”

“They’re really that interested in your sex life?” He asks, mostly disturbed but also a bit pitying of S.T.A.R. labs’ doctor and engineer.

“They’d probably more interested if they knew,” another yawn, “I actually had one. I’m not going to tell them anything,” he says, and Oliver is able to relax somewhat.

Still, though, Barry looks far too tired for having slept as long as they did even after the previous evening’s activities. “Do you need me to get you something to eat?”

“I mean I’m not gonna pass out, but if you’re offering,” Barry says with a grin. He shakes his head, drops a kiss to the corner of his lips. Then on his lips. Then another. Barry’s wrapped his arms around his neck and it’s an effort to tear himself away. Particularly as he slides out from under the sheet and blankets and Barry gives a whine, probably at the sudden chill as much as anything. “Wait, I didn’t actually want you to leave.”

He shakes his head again, searches around the floor for his boxers. “You can’t have it both ways, Barry.” Oliver finds them and his pants, pulls both on, and skips wasting time to look for his shirt. Not when he’s trying to make this brief.

But he only gets halfway down the steps before he spots something that makes him stop, eyes widening. Joe West is sitting in the living room, watching the morning news and sipping a cup of coffee. He supposes the man must have had to come back at some point last night—at which point precisely would be a very critical piece of information to have as it would determine if he should try to sneak by into the kitchen or simply bolt for the door. Or perhaps he should just hide out upstairs until the man leaves the house for the day.

Joe takes all of those options off the table, however, by turning around in his seat and fixing him with a look. A very unimpressed, flat look.

Being with Barry is both exhilarating and new, yet also comforting and familiar. He finds himself rediscovering experiences he hasn’t had since before the island, things he thought he’d lost or outgrown. The disapproving parent look is one of them.

Oliver does what he can to make the most of this situation, even as he’s mentally berating himself for not picking up his stupid shirt. “Good morning, Joe.”

“Found out you couldn’t get the window open, hm?” The other man guesses. “I had those locks put in after the fifth time that kid ran away, and they’ve held up ever since.”

He probably would’ve gone for the window, honestly, if he’d known the detective was home. Still, he’d rather not have Joe think that lowly of him. “Actually I was just hoping to get something from the kitchen. Barry’s still a bit tired.” As soon as he says it he knows it’s precisely the wrong thing to say, and he squeezes his eyes shut.

“I’ll bet.”

 _Why_ did Barry have to give up his lease?

But then he hears a chuckle, and Joe gets up from his chair, walks over to him. “Look, I know you two can’t catch a break. Whether it’s metahumans or my own daughter, seems like there’s always something popping up. Just leave me out of the details.” Then the older man makes for the kitchen himself.

He ought to feel grateful, relieved. But the mention of Iris still causes something unpleasant to stir in his gut. Oliver follows Joe into the kitchen, plants himself by one of the counters while the other man goes rifling through the cabinets. But he can’t shake that uneasy, sickening feeling and finds himself asking, “Joe, has Barry told you he can travel back through time with his speed?”

“Yeah, Cisco and I sort of figured it out—long story. Guess we have to believe anything these days,” he throws a rueful grin over his shoulder. Oliver’s answering one is tight, strained, and Joe freezes. “You mean he actually did it? Is that why he was acting so weird two days ago?”

Oliver shrugs. “He told me he accidentally went back in time one day, and he used it to stop some metahuman.”

“Mardon,” Joe supplies for him. “Knew it was strange how fast he got him. I mean we didn’t even know where the guy was hiding out!” Joe shakes his head, looking about as thrown by this whole new realm of possibilities as Oliver had been when Barry had bluntly told him about it.

“Well, I gather he learned that the first time he went through the day. He also…he told me that in the first time, Iris admitted to having feelings for him.” Joe’s eyebrows raise to almost his hairline, but Oliver has to press on. “You told me once that you used to hope the two of them would become more than friends.”

The other man’s turned all the way back around and crosses his arms. “You seriously asking for my opinion _now_?”

“I’m asking if you feel there’s still a reason to hope.”

Joe snorts. “A reason to hope when my daughter is living with another man and you probably just picked those up off my son’s floor this morning,” the detective checks, gesturing at Oliver’s jeans. He just continues to wait. Joe gives a sigh. “Oliver, I don’t think you’d really care if _I_ was still hoping for it. But if Barry was, well sorry, you’d be dropped like that. But you’re still here. So what’s that tell you?”

A smile, small and brief, crosses his face. “Everything I need to know. Thank you.”

Joe gives him one in return, then refocuses on the cabinets. “For the record, I’m not really hoping. And I don’t think you need to worry about Iris. She’s pretty happy with how things are, got upset when Barry tried talking to her about her feelings. Course, not as upset as Eddie.” Joe chuckles, then mimes a punch to the jaw.

“I’m sorry, what happened?” Oliver asks sharply.

Joe’s eyes snap to his face. “Oh. Bear didn’t tell you that part.”

“No he did not.”

Joe casts him another wary look. Then at last locates a box of Pop Tarts near the back of the cabinet, holds them out to him. “Well, you can give him these. Think I’m going to go set my partner up in protective custody.”

Oliver could probably say something to allay the man’s worries. Instead, he says, “That’s a good idea.”

“Uh-huh,” says Joe with a single nod. Then the older man grabs up his keys and coat hanging on two hooks on the wall, shoots him a final scrutinizing look. “Try not to spend the whole day up there. And my kitchen’s no shirt, no service.”

“Understood,” he says with just the slightest of smirks. He heads up the stairs as Joe heads back out the door. Barry’s fast asleep after all this time, hugging the pillow Oliver used last night with his nose buried in it. He smiles at the sight, then tosses the box of processed food at him. It’s about to hit right on target when suddenly an arm shoots out faster than is possible for anyone else and smacks it onto the floor.

“Fool me twice,” Barry mutters, sleepy and muffled in the pillow.

Oliver laughs. “You just broke the Pop Tarts.”

Barry rolls over onto his back and sits up with a shake of his head. “What? Oh. Whatever, I’ll still eat them. Not like they aren’t packaged.” When he leans over to reach for the box a few feet away from the bed, the sheet slips till it settles low on his bare hips. Oliver appreciates that view for a moment before resettling on the bed beside him. “You took kind of long didn’t you?”

“Well I found myself in conversation with Joe before he left, so,” he excuses.

Barry turns back to him, box retrieved and one of the Pop Tart fragments already in his mouth, his wide eyes a silent and mortified _Oh_.

“He asked that we spend some time out of the house today and that I remember my shirt in future,” Oliver summarizes lightly.

Barry swallows down the food. “Really? That’s it?”

“Everything important,” he replies. Which is true; he’d only been giving in to insecurity when he’d asked for Joe’s assurance. His reminder that Barry wouldn’t still be seeing him, giving him _everything_ , if he didn’t want to shouldn’t have been necessary. But it’s hard to shake those old doubts. He’s lucky Barry’s patient enough to let him try. “So maybe later we can meet back up with Iris and Eddie.”

Barry gives him a strange look. “Seriously, you want to do that after everything—”

“She’s your best friend, Barry, and important to you so yes,” he replies firmly. The younger man smiles broadly at him and leans in to give him a kiss that’s sugary sweet with some kind of artificial flavor—strawberries.

“Thank you. But we really don’t have to bother Eddie, unless it makes you more comfortable for him to be there.”

Oliver gives a crooked smile as he admits, “Not particularly, but I _may_ have an ulterior motive.” He reaches out to cup Barry’s chin, thumb stroking along his jawline on the left side. Eddie’s right-handed, after all.

Barry seems to understand the gesture if his widened eyes are anything to go by. “Joe told you.”

“Yes.”

“We can’t go see them,” the younger man decides.

He arches a single brow. “And why not?”

“Why not? Cause you’re going to, I don’t know, get yourself arrested for assault on an officer or something which is so stupid cause it didn’t even hurt after like half an hour!”

“He didn’t know that,” Oliver points out. “And as a cop he should be made more aware about why he can’t assault others, since I’m sure you didn’t press charges. Someone has to teach him.”

Barry lets out a short laugh. “You teaching someone about anger management?” Then he shakes his head. “No. Not happening.”

“Oh, you’re confident about that?” He issues the challenge.

Next thing he knows he’s flat on his back, Barry pressing him down with a hand on his chest and sitting on his thighs. “Pretty confident, yeah.” And God, if he’d thought Barry was gorgeous before…

They’ll get out of the house. Eventually.

**Author's Note:**

> So it at least finished on a happier note! Except for Eddie, poor Eddie won't know what hit him. I'd love to know people's thoughts, and thanks for reading!


End file.
